The Age of Erasmus Part 8

VI

FORCE AND FRAUD

As you stand on the Piazza dei Signori at Verona, at one side rises the ma.s.sive red-brick tower of the Scaliger palace, lofty, castellated at its top, with here and there a small window, deep set in the old masonry, and the light that is allowed to pa.s.s inwards, grudgingly crossed by bars of rusty iron--a place of defence and perhaps of tyranny, within which life is secure indeed, but grim and sombre.

Opposite, in an angle of the square, stands a very different building, the Palazzo del Consiglio. It has only two storeys, but each of these is high and airy; above is a fine chamber, through whose ample windows streams in the sun; below is a pleasant loggia, supported by slender columns. Marble cornices and bal.u.s.trades give a sense of richness, and the wall-s.p.a.ces are bright with painting and ornament. The s.p.a.cious galleries invite to enjoyment, to pace their length in free light-hearted talk, or to stand and watch the life moving below, with the sense of gay predominance that the advantage of height confers.

The two buildings typify most aptly the ages to which they belong: the contrast between them is as the gulf between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Step back in thought to the twelfth century, and we find civilization struggling for its very existence. Few careers were possible. Above all was the soldier, ruthlessly spreading murder and desolation, and expecting no mercy when his own turn came; in the middle were the merchant and the craftsman, relying on strong city walls and union with their fellows, and the lawyer building up a system, and profiting when men fell out; underneath was the peasant, pitiably dependent on others. On all sides was b.e.s.t.i.a.l cruelty and reckless ignorance: the overmastering care of life to find shelter and protection. How strong, how luxuriously strong seemed that tower, with so few apertures to admit the enemy and the pursuer! once inside, who would wish to stir abroad? For the man who would think or study there was only one way of life, to become sacrosanct in the direct service of G.o.d. The Church, with splendid ideals before it, was exerting itself to crush barbarism, and its forts were garrisoned by men of spirit, whose courage was not that of the destroyer. In the monasteries, if anywhere, was to be found that peace which the world cannot give, the life of contemplation, in which can be felt the hunger and thirst after knowledge.

By the middle of the sixteenth century the scene has changed. Much blood has flowed through the arches of time; and now the conqueror has learnt from the Church to be merciful, from nascent science to be strong. He can spread peace wherever his sword reaches; and fear that of old ruled all under the sun, now can walk only in dark places.

Walls no longer bring comfort, and soon they are to be thrown down to make way for the broad streets which will carry the movement outwards; and, most significant change, the country house with 'its gardens and its gallant walks' takes the place of the grange. From the thraldom of terror what an escape, to light, air, freedom, activity! The gates of joy are opened, the private citizen learns to live, to follow choice not necessity, to give the reins to his spirit and take hold on the gifts that Nature spreads before him.

In the pursuit of peace, human progress has lain in the enlargement of the units of government capable of holding together; from villages to towns, from towns to provinces, from provinces to nations. The last step had been the achievement of the Middle Ages, though even by the end of the fifteenth century it was not yet complete: the twentieth century finds us reaching forward to a new advance. We have spoken of Erasmus' efforts to bring back peace from her exile, of the experiences of his youth when Holland had wept for her children. In 1517, when he wrote his 'Complaint of Peace cast forth from all lands', he was a man and one of Charles' councillors; but Holland was still weeping and refusing comfort. She had good reason. The provinces of the Netherlands were disunited, no sway imposed upon them with strength enough first to restrain and then to knit together. On either side of the Zuider Zee lay two bitter enemies: Holland, which had accepted the Burgundian yoke, and Friesland, which after a long struggle against foreign domination, had been reduced by the rule of Saxon governors, Duke Albert and Duke George. To the south was Gueldres, which, under its Duke, Charles of Egmont, had thrown in its lot with France against Burgundy, and was continually instigating the subjugated Frieslanders to rebellion. Then was war in the gates.

This was the kind of thing that happened. In 1516, after a fresh outbreak of the ceaseless struggle, Henry of Na.s.sau, Stadhouder of Holland and Zeeland, ordered that all Gueldrians or Frieslanders who showed their faces in his dominions should be put to death; and some who were resident at the Hague were executed on the charge of sending aid to their compatriots. A raid by the Gueldrians ended in the ma.s.sacre of Nieuwpoort. Na.s.sau replied by ravaging the country up to the walls of Arnhem, the Gueldres capital.

Duke Charles had terrible forces at command. A body of mercenary troops, known as the Black Band, had been used by George of Saxony for the repression of Friesland in 1514, and since then had been seeking employment wherever they could find it. At the same time, one of the conquered Frieslanders, known as Long Peter, had turned to piracy as an effective way of revenging himself on Holland. Proclaiming himself 'King of the Sea', he seized every ship that came in his way, showing no mercy to Hollanders and holding all others to ransom.

In May 1517, the Duke, violating a truce not yet expired, renewed hostilities. The Black Band, some of whom had strayed as far as Rouen in quest of fighting, flocked back. At the end of June 3000 of them crossed the Zuider Zee in Long Peter's ships and disembarked suddenly at Medemblik, in North Holland. The town was quickly set on fire, and everything destroyed except the citadel; the fleet carrying back the first spoils. Then they marched southwards, burning what they list; and happy were those whose offer of ransom was accepted, to escape with plunder only.

There was no fixed plan. The murderous horde wandered along, turning to right or left as fancy suggested. After burning five country towns, they appeared at Alcmar, the chief town of North Holland, into which the most precious possessions of the neighbourhood had been hurriedly conveyed. By a heavy payment, the burghers purchased immunity from the flames; but for eight days the town was given up to the l.u.s.t and ferocity of an uncontrolled soldiery, from whose senseless destruction it took thirty years to recover. Egmond, with its great abbey, was pillaged; and then it was Haarlem's turn to suffer. But by this time resistance had been organized. Troops had been called back from garrison work in Friesland, and a strong line drawn in front of Haarlem. Headed off, the Black Band turned suddenly away. Pa.s.sing Amsterdam and Culemborg, it penetrated down into South Holland, whence it would be easy to pa.s.s back into Gueldres. Asperen was its next prey. Three times the citizens beat off the cruel foe: a few more to man their walls, and they might have driven him right away, to overwhelm others less fortunate and less brave.

But it was not to be. At the fourth attempt the marauders were successful, and ma.s.sacre ensued. Death to the men, worse than death to the women: nor age nor innocence could touch those black hearts. A schoolmaster with his boys fled into a church and hid trembling in the rood-loft. Before long they were discovered. Thirsting for blood, some of the monsters rushed up the steps and tossed the shrieking victims over on to the pikes of their comrades below. When all the butchery was finished, a few helpless and infirm survivors were dragged out of hiding-places. The miserable creatures were driven out of the city and the gates barred in their faces. For a month the Black Band held Asperen as a standing camp, living upon the provisions stored up by the dead. Then Na.s.sau came with troops and drove them forth, pursuing into Gueldres, where he burned '46 good villages' in revenge. The sight of fire blazing to heaven is appalling enough when men are ranged all on one side, and the battle is with the element alone. Our peace-lapped imaginations cannot picture the terror of flames kindled aforethought. As those poor fugitives scattered over the country, cowering into the darkness out of the fire's searching glow, they cannot but have recalled the words: 'Woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days.' At least they could give thanks that their flight was not in the winter.

Meanwhile Long Peter had not been idle. On 14 August he had a great battle with the Hollanders off Hoorn. Eleven ships he took, and cast their crews into the sea: 500 men, save one, a Gueldrian, struggling in the calm summer waters and stretching out their hands to a foe who knew no pity. In September he surrounded a merchant fleet. The Easterlings escaped at heavy ransom; but the crews of three Holland vessels were flung to the waves. Then he carried the war on to the land, to glean what the Black Band had left. With 1200 men he took Hoorn by escalade; plunder-laden and sated, they returned to the sea.

Nothing was too small or too helpless for his rapacity. Along the coast they picked up a barge of Enckhuizen. Its only crew, master and mate, were thrown overboard, and Peter's fleet sailed upon its way. We must remember that the provinces engaged in this internecine strife were not widely diverse in race, and that to-day they are peacefully united under one governance.

The winter of 1517-18 was spent by the Black Band in Friesland. Three thousand men who are prepared to take by force what is not given to them, do not lie hungry in the cold. We may be sure that under them the land had no rest. At Easter they began to move southwards in quest of other victims and other employ. But as they halted between Venlo and Roermond, resistance confronted them. Na.s.sau had arrayed by his side the Archbishop of Cologne and the Dukes of Juliers and Cleves: the gates of the cities were closed and the ferry-boats that would have carried them across the Maas had been kept on the other side.

Caught in a trap, the freebooters promised to lay down their weapons and disperse. The disarmament proceeded quietly till one of the company-leaders refused to part with a bombard, the new invention, of which he was very proud. A trumpeter, seeing the man hesitate, sounded a warning, and the containing troops stood on the alert. Readiness led to action. Suddenly they fell on the helpless horde, for whom there was no safety but in flight. A thousand were ma.s.sacred before Na.s.sau and his confederates could check their men.

Erasmus was about to set out from Louvain to Basle, to work at a new edition of the New Testament. Bands such as these were, of course, a peril to travellers. Half exultant, half disgusted, he wrote to More: 'These fellows were stripped before disbandment: so they will have all the more excuse for fresh plundering. This is consideration for the people! They were so hemmed in that not one of them could have escaped: yet the Dukes were for letting them go scot-free. It was mere chance that any of them were killed. Fortunately, a man blew his trumpet: there was at once an uproar, and more than a thousand were cut down. The Archbishop alone was sound. He said that, priest though he was, if the matter were left to him, he would see that such things should never occur again. The people understand the position, but are obliged to acquiesce.' To Colet he exclaimed more bitterly: 'It is cruel! The n.o.bles care more for these ruffians than for their own subjects. The fact is, they count on them to keep the people down.'

Let us be thankful that Europe to-day has no experience of such mercenaries.

A sign of the troubles of the times was the existence of the French order of Trinitarians for the redemption of prisoners. This need had been known even when Rome's power was at its height, for Cicero[25]

specifies the redemption of men captured by pirates as one of the ways in which the generously minded were wont to spend their money. The practice lasted down continuously through the Middle Ages. Gaguin, the historian of France, Erasmus' first patron in Paris, was for many years General of the Trinitarians, and made a journey to Granada to redeem prisoners who had been taken fighting against the Moors. Even in the eighteenth century, church offertories in England were asked and given to loose captives out of prison.

[25] _De Officiis_, 2. 16.

Where the king's peace is not kept and the king's writ does not run, men learn to rely on themselves. Those who protect themselves with strength, discover the efficacy of force, and soon are not content to apply it merely on the defensive. It is not surprising, therefore, to find in Erasmus' day many cases of resort to violence to remedy defective t.i.tles. Nowadays we never hear of a defeated candidate for a coveted post trying to obtain by force and right of possession the position which has been given to another. It is unthinkable, for instance, that a Warden of Merton duly elected should have to eject from college some disappointed rival who had possessed himself of the Warden's office and house: as actually happened in 1562. It is, perhaps, not so much that we have become more law-abiding, as that we realize that any such attempt must be fruitless when the strong arm of the State is at hand, ready to a.s.sert the rights of the lawful claimant.

In Erasmus' day might was often right. Thus in 1492 the Abbot of St.

Bertin's at St. Omer died, and the monks elected in his place a certain James du Val, who was duly consecrated in July 1493. The Bishop of Cambray, however, had had the abbey in his eye for his younger brother Antony, who had been ejected ten years before by the powerful family of Arenberg from the Abbey of St. Trond in Limburg, and meanwhile had been living unemployed at Louvain. The Bishop persuaded the Pope to annul du Val's election and appoint Antony in his place, probably on some technical ground. Armed with this permission he appeared at St. Omer in October 1493 and violently installed his brother; who held the abbey undisturbed till his death nearly forty years later. The Bishop's success with the Pope is the more noteworthy, as for a period of seven years he himself had refused to surrender an abbey near Mons to a papal nominee, who was not strong enough to wrest it from him. Again, during the five years of the English occupation of Tournay, 1513-18, there was a continual struggle between two rival bishops, appointed when the see fell vacant in 1513--Wolsey nominated by Henry VIII and Louis Guillard by the Pope.

It goes without saying that Wolsey won; and Guillard did not get in till 1519, the year after the evacuation by the English.

Fernand tells a story of violence at the monastery of Souillac, which was closely connected with his own at Chezal-Benoit. When the Abbot died, a monk of St. Martin's at Tours, who was a native of Souillac, with the aid of a brother who was a court official, got himself put in as abbot before the monks had time to elect. They appealed to the king, but quite in vain; for instead of giving ear to their complaint he sent down a troop of soldiers to support the invading Abbot. It was a grievous time for the poor monks. The garrison did whatever they pleased: imprisoned the faithful servants of the monastery, introduced hunting-dogs and birds, roared out their licentious choruses to the sound of lute and pipe, and gave up the whole day to games of every sort, in which the weaker brethren joined. Those who refused to do so or to violate their vows by eating flesh were insulted; and as they held divine service, coa.r.s.e laughter and clamour interrupted them.

Strict watch was kept upon them, too, lest they should speak or write to any one of their injuries. We need not deplore the pa.s.sing of such 'good old days'.

It is necessary to realize the certainty which in the sixteenth century men allowed themselves to feel on subjects of the highest importance; for nothing short of this intense conviction is adequate to explain the ferocity with which they treated those over whom they had triumphed in matters of religion. Burning at the stake was the common method of expiation. The fires of Smithfield consumed brave, humble victims, while Erasmus jested over the rising price of wood, In France the Inquisition entrapped many men of literary distinction, Louis de Berquin 1529, John de Caturce 1532, Stephen Dolet 1546; on the charge of heresy or atheism which could only with great difficulty be refuted. To kill a fellow-creature or to watch him put to death would be physically impossible to most of us, in our unruffled lives; where from year's-end to year's-end we hardly even hear a word spoken in anger. In consequence it is difficult for us to understand the indifference with which in the sixteenth century men of the most advanced refinement regarded the sufferings of others. Between rival combatants and claimants for thrones fierce measures are more intelligible; especially in days when stone walls did not a prison make--such a prison, at least, as the prisoner might not some day hope to break. Things had improved somewhat since the Middle Ages. We hear less of the varieties of mutilation, the blinding, loss of nose, hands, b.r.e.a.s.t.s, which were the portion of either s.e.x indiscriminately, when the death-penalty had not been fully earned. But it was still fashionable to suspend your adversary in a cage and torture him, or to confine him for years in a dungeon which light and air could never reach. The executions of heretics became public shows, carefully arranged beforehand, and attended by rank and fashion; to whom to show any sign of sensibility would have been disgrace. Impossible it seems to believe. We must remember that the perpetrators of such n.o.ble acts had persuaded themselves that they were serving G.o.d. They were as confident as Joshua or as Jehu that they knew His will; and they had no hesitation in carrying it out.

If you may take a man's life in G.o.d's name, there can be no objection to telling him a lie. The violation of the safe-conduct which brought Hus to Constance was a fine precedent for breaking faith with a heretic. When Luther came to Worms to answer for himself before Emperor and Diet, the Pope's representatives reminded Charles of the principle which had lighted the fires at Constance and ridded the world of a dangerous fellow. Fortunately Charles had German subjects to consider, and the Germans had a reputation for good faith of which they were proud. Let us credit him too with some generosity; he was scarcely 21, and the young find the arguments of expediency difficult.

Anyway, Luther with the help of his friends got off safely. The intrigues and subterfuges of diplomatists are still very often revolting to honest men. But there is some excuse for them; they act on behalf of nations, who have to look to themselves for protection and can rarely afford to be generous and aboveboard. But so barefaced a violation of faith to an individual before the eyes of the world would no longer be tolerated, not even in the name of the Lord.

The following example will ill.u.s.trate the ideas of the age about the treatment of heretics; an example of faith continually broken and of incredible cruelty. In 1545 the Cardinal de Tournon and Baron d'Oppede, the first president of the Parliament of Aix, were moved to extirpate that plague-spot of Southern France, the Vaudois communities of Dauphine, who went on still in their wickedness and heresy. The intriguers prepared a decree revoking the letters patent of 1544, which had suspended proceedings against the Vaudois; and when the keeper of the seals refused to present it to the king for signature, by unlawful means they presented it through a secretary and unlawfully procured the affixion of the seals. But this was a mere trifle: greater things were to follow.

On 13 April 1545 the Baron entered the Vaudois territory at the head of a body of troops, reinforced by the papal Vice-legate and a fanatical mob of countryfolk. The inhabitants offered little resistance, and soon villages were in flames on every side. At Merindol the soldiers found only one inhabitant, a poor idiot; all the rest had fled. The Baron ordered him to be shot. Above by the castle some women were discovered hiding in a church; after indescribable outrages they were thrown headlong from the rocks. Cabrieres being fortified was prepared to stand a siege; but on a promise of their lives and property the inhabitants opened the gates. Without a moment's hesitation the Baron gave orders to put them all to death.

The soldiers refused to break plighted faith; but the mob had no scruples and the ghastly work began. 'A mult.i.tude of women and children had fled to the church: the furious horde rushed headlong among them and committed all the crimes of which h.e.l.l could dream.

Other women had hidden themselves in a barn. The Baron caused them to be shut up there and fire set to the four corners. A soldier rushed to save them and opened the door, but the women were driven back into the fire with blows of pikes. Twenty-five women had taken shelter in a cavern at some distance from the town. The Vice-legate caused a great fire to be lighted at the entrance: five years afterwards the bones of the victims were found in the inmost recesses.'[26] La Coste had the same fate; the promise made and immediately violated, and then all the terrors of h.e.l.l. In the course of a few weeks 3000 men and women were ma.s.sacred, 256 executed, and six or seven hundred sent to the galleys; while children unnumbered were sold as slaves. The offence of these poor people was that they had been seeking in their own fashion to draw nearer to the G.o.d of Love.

[26] R.C. Christie, _etienne Dolet_, ch. xxiv.

But public morals ever lag behind private; and in the sixteenth century private standards of truth and honour were not so high as they are now. Here again we may find one main cause in the absence of personal security. In these days of settled government, when thought and speech are free, it is scarcely possible to realize what men's outlook upon life must have been when walls had ears and a man's foes might be those of his own household. In Henry VII's reign England had not had time to forget the Wars of the Roses, and claimants to the throne were still occasionally executed in the Tower. Even under the mighty hand of Henry VIII ministers rose and fell with alarming rapidity. When princes contend, private men do well to hold their peace; lest light utterances be brought up against them so soon as Fortune's wheel has swung to the top those that were underneath. In matters of faith, too, it was supremely necessary to be careful; for unguarded words might arouse suspicions of heresy, to be followed by the frightful penalties with which heresy was extirpated. On great questions, therefore, men must have kept their tongues and thoughts in a strict reserve: candour and openness, those valuable solvents of social humours, can only have been practised by the unwise.

Truth is one of those things in which to him that hath shall be given.

It is a common jest in the East that professional witnesses come daily to the law-courts waiting to be hired by either side. The harder truth is to discover, with the less are men content. With many inducements to dissimulation and no great expectations of personal honesty, men are likely to traffic with expediency and to be adept in justifying themselves when they forsake the truth.

Some examples of this may be found in Erasmus' letters. When he was in Italy in 1509, Henry VII died. His English patron, Lord Mountjoy, was intimate with Henry VIII. A few weeks after the accession a letter from Mountjoy reached Erasmus, inviting him to return to England and promising much in the young king's name. The letter was in fact written by Ammonius, an Italian, who afterwards became Latin secretary to the king. He was recognized as one of the best scholars of the day; and there can be no doubt that the letter was his composition.

Mountjoy was a sufficiently keen scholar to sit up late at night over his books, and to be chosen as a companion to the young Prince Henry in his studies; but such autograph letters by him as survive show that he wrote with difficulty even in English, and it is impossible to suppose that he would have kept an accomplished Latinist in his employ merely to act as copyist to his effusions. Moreover, Erasmus, writing a few years later, says that he recognized the letter as Ammonius'

work, not from the handwriting, which he had forgotten, but from the style. Nevertheless he allowed it to be published in 1519 as his patron's. Of his connivance in the matter there is actual proof; for in 1517 he had the letter copied by one of his servant-pupils into a letter-book, and added the heading himself. What he first wrote was: 'Andreas Ammonius Erasmo Roterodamo S.D.,' but afterwards he scratched out Ammonius' name and wrote in 'Guilhelmus Montioius'. In a sense, of course, he was correct; for the letter was written in Mountjoy's name.

But he cannot have been unaware that in an age which valued elegant Latinity so highly, his patron would be gratified by the ascription.

It was no great matter, and did no harm to any one. But it throws some doubt on Erasmus' statement as to the scholarship of Henry VIII. When Henry's book against Luther appeared in 1521, people said that Erasmus had lent him a hand. In denying the insinuation Erasmus avers that Henry was quite capable of doing the work himself, and adds that his own suspicions of Henry's capacity had been dispelled by Mountjoy, who when tutor to the young prince had preserved rough copies of Latin letters written by Henry's own hand; and these he produced to convince the doubter. Erasmus had a double motive in a.s.serting Henry's authorship, to play the courtier and to avoid provoking Luther; and Mountjoy, as we have seen, is not above suspicion. But there is some further evidence in support of them all, prince and patron and scholar. Pace, Colet's successor at St. Paul's, speaks of hearing Henry talk Latin quickly and readily; and Giustinian, the Venetian amba.s.sador, quotes a few remarks made to him by Henry in Latin by way of greeting. Till more evidence is forthcoming, Erasmus must be let off on this count with a Not proven.

Another example of scant regard for truth is his disowning of the _Julius Exclusus_. This was a witty dialogue, in Erasmus' best style, on the death of Pope Julius II. The Pope is shown arriving at the gate of heaven, accompanied by his Genius, a sort of guardian angel, and amazed to find it locked, with no preparation at all for his reception. His amazement grows when St. Peter at length appears and makes it plain that the gate is not going to be opened, and that there is no room in heaven for Julius with his record of wars and other unchristian deeds; whereupon there is a fine set-to, and each party receives some hard knocks.

That Erasmus was its author there can be no doubt; for there is evidence in two directions of the existence of a copy or copies of it in his handwriting, and we cannot suppose that at that period of his life, when he regularly had one or more servant-pupils in his employ, he would have troubled to copy out with his own hand a work of that length by another. There was nothing very outrageous in the dialogue, nothing much more than there was in the _Moria_; but it was not the sort of thing for a man to write who was so closely connected as Erasmus was with the Papal see, and who wished to stand well with it in the future. The _Julius_ appeared in print in 1517, of course anonymously, and Erasmus was pleased with its reception; but he soon found that people who were not in the secret were attributing it to him. That would never do; so he set to work to repudiate it. The friends that knew he exhorted to know nothing; the rest he endeavoured to persuade that he was not the author, using many forms of equivocation. He rises to his greatest heights in addressing cardinals. To Campegio, then in London, he writes on 1 May 1519:

'How malicious some people are! Any scandalous book that comes out they at once put down to me. That silly production, _Nemo_, they said was mine; and people would have believed them, only the author (Hutten) indignantly claimed it as his own. Then those absurd Letters (of the Obscure Men): of course I was thought to have had a hand in them. Finally, they began to say that I was the author of this book of Luther; a person I have hardly ever heard of, certainly I have not read his book. As all these failed, they are trying to fasten on me an anonymous dialogue which appears to make mock of Pope Julius. Five years ago I glanced through it, I can hardly say I read it.

Afterwards I found a copy of it in Germany, under various names. Some said it was by a Spaniard, name unknown; others ascribed it to Faustus Andrelinus, others to Hieronymus Balbus.

For myself I do not quite know what to think. I have my suspicions; but I haven't yet followed them up to my satisfaction. Certainly whoever wrote it was very foolish;'--that sentence was from his heart!--'but even more to blame is the man who published it. To my surprise some people attribute it to me, merely on the ground of style, when it is nothing like my style, if I am any judge: though it would not be very wonderful if others did write like me, seeing that my books are in all men's hands. I am told that your Reverence is inclined to doubt me: with a few minutes' conversation I am sure I could dispel your suspicions. Let me a.s.sure you that books of this kind written by others I have had suppressed: so it is hardly likely that I should have published such a thing myself, or ever wish to publish it.'

Not bad that, from the author of the _Julius_. A fortnight later he wrote to Wolsey to much the same effect, instancing as books that had been attributed to him Hutten's _Nemo_ and _Febris_, Mosella.n.u.s'

_Oratio de trium linguarum ratione_, Fisher's reply to Faber, and even More's _Utopia_. As to the _Julius_ he says: 'Plenty of people here will tell you how indignant I was some years ago when I found the book being privately pa.s.sed about. I glanced through it (I can hardly be said to have read it); and I tried vigorously to get it suppressed.

This is the work of the enemies of good learning, to try and fasten this book upon me.' Finally, to clinch his argument, he a.s.severates with audacious ingenuity: 'I have never written a book, and I never will, to which I will not affix my own name.'

Jortin points out that the only thing which Erasmus specifically denies is the publication of the _Julius_. As we have seen, an author of consequence in those days rarely troubled to correct his own proof-sheets. Erasmus left his _Moria_ behind in Paris for Richard Croke to see through the press; More committed his _Utopia_ to Erasmus, who had it printed for him at Louvain; Linacre sent his translations of Galen to Paris by the hands of Lupset, who supervised the printing. It is therefore quite probable that Erasmus did not personally superintend the publication of the _Julius_; but until students of typography can tell us definitely which is the first printed edition, and where it was printed, we cannot be certain. But besides this point of practice born of convenience, there was another born of modesty. With compositions that were purely literary--poems and other creations of art and fancy, as opposed to more solid productions--the convention arose of pretending that the publication of them was due to the entreaties of friends, or even in some cases that it had been carried out by ardent admirers without the author's knowledge. Printing, with its ease of multiplication, had made publication a far more definite act than it was in the days of ma.n.u.scripts. In the prefaces to his early compositions, Erasmus almost always a.s.sumes this guise. More actually wrote to Warham and to another friend that the _Utopia_ had been printed without his knowledge. Of course this was not true, but n.o.body misunderstood him.

Dolet's _Orationes ad Tholosam_ appeared through the hand of a friend, but with the most transparent figments.

There was, therefore, abundant precedent for denying authorship. But there is a difference between the light veil of modesty and clouds of dust raised in apprehension. The publication of the _Julius_ certainly placed Erasmus in a dilemma; he extricated himself by equivocation, which barely escapes from direct untruth. It is possible that a public man of his position at the present day might find himself driven to a similar method of escape from a similar indiscretion.[27] But experience has taught men not to write lampoons which they dare not avow, and a more effective law of copyright protects them against publication by pirate printers.

[27] An example of this may be seen in the new _Life of Edward Bulwer, First Lord Lytton_, 1913, ii. 71-6. Bulwer-Lytton's letter, 15 March 1846, denying the authorship of the _New Timon_, might almost have been translated from Erasmus' to Campegio, except that it goes further in falsehood.

VII

PRIVATE LIFE AND MANNERS